Even the vetoed UN resolution was itself a watered-down compromise to
appease the Russians and Chinese.

Dear Reader,
As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before.
Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications,
like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations,
we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open
and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news
and analyses from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.

In a cruel mockery of the rights and lives of the Syrian people, who are under
escalating assault by President Bashar Assad’s murderous regime, Russia and
China vetoed United Nations Security Council efforts to stop the bloodshed in
Syria. In a particularly mocking defiance, the vote was held on the same
day that Syrian forces killed 200 people in Homs – referred to as “the capital
of the Syrian revolution.” It was the highest death toll reported for a
single day since the uprising began almost a year ago. Indeed, some five
days after the “license to kill” veto, some 300 more have been killed through
intense and incessant tank, mortar and artillery fire targeting civilian
neighborhoods in Homs.

The total death toll now stands at more than 7,000
persons murdered – including now also by rocket attacks – and the grotesque
gunning down of people at funerals for those gunned down the day
before. Witnesses also tell of the wanton killing and torture of
children, detainees and even hospital residents – and the reported cutting of
electrical supply to hospitals in Homs, resulting in the deaths of the newly-born
– in short, the slaughter of innocents.

Arab League proposals to halt the
killing, sanctions to deter it, and a monitoring mission to prevent it were only
met with more murder and more violence. And so, the Arab League – in
concert with the US and the European Union – underpinned by anguished appeals
from the Syrians themselves, turned to the UN Security Council in the hope that
it would finally mobilize to save Syrian lives.

Tragically, China and
Russia used their vetoes to kill any Security Council resolution.

It was
a move that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton characterized as a “travesty,”
while European leaders referred to it as “appalling” and “outrageous.”

UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon characterized it as “a great disappointment to the
people of Syria [and] to all supporters of democracy and human rights,” adding
that it “undermines the role of the United Nations and the international
community.”

Indeed, since the mass protests – and the mass murder –
began, Syrians seeking freedom and democracy – and simple human security – have
looked for international support and solidarity in their struggle against the
Assad regime. In particular, it was hoped that the UN Security Council would
finally, however belatedly, invoke the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine
with respect to Syria, as it had with Libya – and with no less compelling
justification.

JPOST VIDEOS THAT MIGHT INTEREST YOU:

At the UN World Summit in 2005, more than 150 heads of
state and government unanimously adopted a declaration on the Responsibility to
Protect, authorizing international collective action “to protect [a state’s]
population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against
humanity” if that state is unable or unwilling to protect its citizens, or
worse, as in the case of Syria, if that state is the author of such
criminality.

Simply put, it is as shocking as it is shameful that the
Security Council has yet to adopt a resolution of condemnation, let alone invoke
R2P. Indeed, even the vetoed UN resolution was itself a watered-down compromise
to appease the Russians and Chinese. It did not call for a condemnation of
Syria’s murderous action, let alone protective action to prevent it – or
sanctions to deter it – though these are threshold requirements.

It did
not authorize the provision of necessary humanitarian assistance or an arms
embargo – though these are essential to protect the Syrian
people.

Indeed, it did not call for the invocation of the R2P principle –
as a foundational principle of international conscience and commitment – thereby
averting its gaze from the human suffering and carnage.

In fact, the
resolution was regarded by some as sufficiently weak that Congresswoman Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called on
the US government to veto it, saying that the draft resolution “contains no
sanctions, no restrictions on weapons transfers, and no calls for Assad to go”
and “isn’t worth the paper it is printed on.”

China and Russia, then,
must be called to account for their complicity in allowing the bloodshed to
continue. This is particularly scandalous behavior by Russia, not only for its
obstruction of an already-compromised UN resolution, but for its supply of arms
to Assad that are used to massacre civilians, its political support for a regime
engaged in crimes against humanity, and its exculpatory cover for that
regime.

Moreover, Assad should be brought to justice for crimes against
his own people – as the author of this mass atrocity – and not given exculpatory
immunity by Russia. It is not surprising that the Assad regime received Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as a hero when he came to Damascus, while Russian
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned against interference in the “internal
affairs” of Syria.

What remains, beyond the need for UN action under R2P
– or even if a UN Security Council resolution cannot be secured – is for an
international “coalition of the willing” to act, as was done in the case of
Kosovo, to stop the then-murderous Milosevic regime.

With 13 of the 15
members of the UN Security Council supporting the resolution – and with a rare
international coalition comprising the US, Canada, Europe, Turkey and the Arab
League – the Responsibility to Protect should now find expression in collective
action to ensure: the deployment of an international protection force led by the
Arab League; the provision of badly needed humanitarian assistance and relief;
the withdrawal of Syrian tanks and troops to barracks; the implementation of
no-fly and nodrive zones; and support for the Syrian National Council, the
nascent Syrian representative body.

Other possible measures would include
implementing worldwide travel bans and asset seizures; expanded economic and
financial sanctions, including the sanctioning of the Syrian Central Bank; an
arms embargo and import of precious metals; and the initiation of international
criminal investigations for war crimes and crimes against humanity, while
putting Syrian leaders on notice that they will be held responsible for their
crimes.

As Ban Ki-moon once put it, “loss of time means more loss of
lives.” It is our collective responsibility to ensure R2P is not empty rhetoric,
but an effective instrument for preventing mass atrocity, for protecting people,
and for securing human rights.

Tragically, we have not yet done what
needs to be done, despite our having known the cruel and desperate reality of
the situation on the ground in Syria for close to a year now. The Economist ran
a cover story headlined “Savagery in Syria” last April. No one can say we did
not know.

Yet after all this brutality, we still do not have a protective
UN Security Council resolution or equivalent protective action. If the
Responsibility to Protect is to mean anything, it means acting here – and acting
now.

The writer is the member of Parliament for Mount Royal and a former
minister of justice and attorney-general of Canada. He is the co-editor of The
Responsibility to Protect: The Promise of Stopping Mass Atrocities in our Time,
a recent publication of Oxford University Press.

Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>

The Jerusalem Post Customer Service Center can be contacted with any questions or requests:
Telephone: *2421 * Extension 4 Jerusalem Post or 03-7619056 Fax: 03-5613699E-mail: subs@jpost.com
The center is staffed and provides answers on Sundays through Thursdays between 07:00 and 14:00 and Fridays only handles distribution requests between 7:00 and
13:00
For international customers: The center is staffed and provides answers on Sundays through Thursdays between 7AM and 6PM
Toll Free number in Israel only 1-800-574-574
Telephone +972-3-761-9056
Fax: 972-3-561-3699
E-mail: subs@jpost.com